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jfarmington in tbc Mar of tbc IRevolution 



AN 

HISTORICAL ADDRESS 



DELIVERED AT THE 



ANNUAL MEETING 

OF 

The Village Library Company 

OF 

FARMINGTON, CONN. 
May 3, 1893 



Bf JULIUS GAY 



HARTFORD, CONN. 

Press of The Case, Lockwood & Brainard CoMTANy 
1893 



'Of 



ADDRESS. 



Ladies and Gentlemen of the Village Library Company of 
Farmington : 

I propose this evening to answer, in a somewhat 
informal way, certain questions often asked about Farm- 
ington in the days of the Revolution. I shall have little 
to say of battles and campaigns, and great generals. A 
glimpse, and only a glimpse, we may have of Washing- 
ton as he rides into the forest toward Litchfield, soon to 
learn of the treachery of Arnold. All these weightier 
matters every schoolboy knows, or ought to know. My 
subject lies nearer home, of little interest but to those 
whose grandsires here lived, and from this valley went 
out to preserve its liberties. 

The visitor to the old cemetery, after passing through 
the gateway with its grim inscription, "■Memento Mori,'' 
and climbing the steep pathway beyond, soon finds on his 
left a stone with this inscription : " In Memory of | Mr. 
Matthias Learning | Who hars got | Beyond the reach of 
Parcecushion. | The life of man is Vanity." There is no 
date of death or record of age. It is not so much the 
memorial of an individual as of a lost cause. Its posi- 
tion, facing in opposition to all the other stones, is itself a 
protest. JVfatthias Leaming was a Tory, or, as he pre- 
ferred to be called, a Loyalist. At the close of the war 
the Tories mostly fled to England, Nova Scotia, New 
Brunswick, and Canada, and in 1 790 were allowed fifteen 
and one-half millions of dollars by the Crown, besides 
annuities, offices, and other gifts, in recompense for their 



services and sufferings. So few remained here that we 
hardly realize that once, taking New England as a whole, 
they were as numerous and wealthy as the patriot party. 
We have no time to consider at length the causes of the 
war, but certain things we must bear in mind if we would 
at all understand the spirit of the times. The orators had 
much to say of taxation without representation, and stout 
Dr. Johnson replied in vigorous English that taxation was 
no tyranny. Other matters, however, less abstract, had 
gradually prepared the patriots to resist to the death this 
last imposition. The colonists were denied the right to 
manufacture for themselves almost all articles of neces- 
sity, but must import them from some Englishman whose 
sovereign had given him the monopoly. Their commerce 
was restricted to British ports. Even the agricultural 
products of the neighboring West Indies must first be 
shipped to England before they could be landed in Bos- 
ton. They were denied a market either for sale or pur- 
chase outside of the dominion of Great Britain. The 
British merchant could say, " You shall trade at my shop 
or starve, and you shall make nothing for yourselves." 
Their solemn charters were annulled, authority to elect 
their principal officers was denied them, and the right to 
assemble in town meeting abolished. Repeatedly his 
Majesty asked, in a long list of questions submitted to the 
General Assembly of Connecticut, where his dutiful sub- 
jects bought and sold, and what they presumed to manu- 
facture, and repeatedly he was shrewdly answered. So 
long as diplomacy and downright, wholesale smuggling 
availed, the crisis was averted, but when the wants of the 
British treasury, and especially of the East India Com- 
pany, demanded a rigorous enforcement of the laws, the 
situation became intolerable. To all this was added the 
threat of vigorous government by lords spiritual as well 



5 

as lords temporal, from which they had once for all 

escaped. 

The lapse of a hundred years has made the position 

of the loyalists, who were ready to submit to all demands 

of their divinely anointed king as a matter of course, a 

mystery to us whose habitual treatment of our highest 

magistrate has not trained us in habits of reverence. The 

graceful sentiments of Sir Walter Scott's heroine have to 

us an unreal sound : 

" Lands and manors pass away, 

We but share our monarch's lot. 

If no more our annals sh.ow 
Battles won and banners taken, 

Still in death, defeat, and wo, 
Ours be loyalty unshaken ! " 

More easily can we understand the sturdy independ- 
ence of the patriots. They came to these shores, not for 
religious freedom, which was a principle unknown, but to 
establish a church of their own and a government of their 
own, such as their consciences demanded, narrow, as our 
vision, broadened by two centuries, looks upon them, but 
established by themselves and for themselves only, where 
there was no one to be interfered with, and leaving in the 
more genial regions of the South plenty of room for the 
colonies of other religious proclivities. How long this 
exclusiveness could be maintained, time has shown. 
These men, to whom Church and State were one, whose 
relio-ion was a covenant with God, between whom and 
themselves they allowed no human mediator, were the 
men whom George III thought to crush. 

On the 31st of March, 1774, the Boston Port bill was 
signed, and on the 1st of June it went into effect. Its 
reception in this town will appear in the following letter : 
"Farmjngton, Connecticut, May 19, 1774. 

"Early in the morning- was found the following handbill, 
posted up in various parts of the town, viz. : 



"'To pass through the fire at six o'clock this evening, in 
honor to the immortal Goddess of Liberty, the late infamous act 
of the British Parliament for farther distressing the American 
colonies. The place of execution will be the public parade, where 
all Sons of Liberty are desired to attend. ' 

"Accordingly, a very numerous and respectable body were 
assembled, of near one thousand people, when a huge pole, just 
forty-five feet high, was erected, and consecrated to the shrine of 
Liberty; after which the act of Parliament for blocking up the 
Boston harbor was read aloud, sentenced to the flames, and exe- 
cuted by the hands of the common hangman. Then the following 
resolves were passed, ncm con." 

The resolves were spirited, but too long for our pres- 
ent purpose. 

The Rev. vSamuel Peters, of Hebron, notorious as the 
author of "A General History of Connecticut ... by 
a Gentleman of the Province," and inventor of the 
so-called " Blue Laws of Connecticut," comments on 
these proceedings as follows : 

" Faniiington burnt the act of Parliament in great contempt 
by their common hangman, when a thousand of her best inhabi- 
tants were convened for that glorious purpose of committing trea- 
son against the king; for which vile conduct they have not been 
styled a pest to Connecticut, and enemies to common sense, either 
by his Honor or any king's attorney, or in any town meeting. We 
sincerely wish and hope a day will be set apart by his Honor very 
soon for fasting and prayer throughout this colony, that the sins 
of those haughty people may not be laid to our charge." 

We shall hear enough of fast days, but they were not 
proclaimed to bewail the sins of Farmington. 

The situation of the once flourishing port of Boston 
was now most critical, and donations for the relief of its 
suffering inhabitants flowed in from the surrounding 
towns. The action of this town on the 15th of June is 
chronicled at length in the admirable discounse of Presi- 
dent Porter. The following is a letter written by Samuel 
Adams in response to this action, addressed " To Fisher 



Gay, Esq., and the rest of the Committee in Farmington, 
Connecticut. 

"Boston, July 29, 1774. 

"S/r, — I am desired by the Committee of the Town of Boston, 
appointed to receive the donations made by onr sympathizing 
brethren, for the employment or relief of such inhabitants of this 
town as are more immediate sufferers by the cruel act of Parlia- 
ment for shtitting up this harbor, to acquaint you that our friend, 
Mr. Barrett, has commtmicated to them your letter of the 25th 
instant, advising that yoit have shipped, per Captain Israel Wil- 
liams, between three and four hundred bushels of rye and Indian 
com for the above-mentioned purpose, and that you have the sub- 
scriptions still open, and expect after harvest to ship a much 
larger quantity. Mr. Barrett tells us that upon the arrival of Cap- 
tain Williams he will endorse this bill of lading or receipt to us. 

"The Committee have a very grateful sense of the generosity 
of their friends in Farmington, who may depend upon their dona- 
tions being applied agreeable to their benevolent intention, as it 
is a great satisfaction to the Committee to find the Continent so 
united in opinion. The town of Boston is now suffering for the 
common liberties of America, and while they are aided and sup- 
ported by their friends, I am persuaded they will struggle through 
the conflict, firm and steady. 

"I am, with very great regard, gentlemen, 
"Your friend and countryman, 

" Samuel Adams." 

Five weeks later, on the 3d of September, the follow- 
ing agreement was drawn up in the handwriting of Major 
William Judd, and bears the signatures of seventy of the 
principal inhabitants of this village : 

"We, whose names are hereunto stibscribers, promise and 
engage to be in readiness and duly equipt with arms and aiumu- 
nition to proceed to Boston for the relief of our distressed and 
besieged brethren there, and to be under the direction of such 
officers as shall be by us appointed, as witness our hands this 3d 
day of September, A. D. 1774." 

A roll of honor on which we may well be pleased to see 
the names of our ancestors recorded. 



8 

Town meetings followed in quick succession. On the 
20th of .September the Rev. Levi Hart of Preston was 
invited to preach to the assembled freemen of Farming- 
ton on Liberty. He preached them a sermon on " Liberty 
Described and Recommended," but his text must have 
sounded strangely in their ears as he read, " While they 
promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of 
corruption." There was not a word about British tyr- 
anny, but a fervid discourse to our merchant princes on 
the horrors of the slave trade. 

Strange doctrine this. Did not the good men of that 
day rejoice in thus delivering benighted souls from the 
heathen darkness of Africa? West India shippers, not 
only of this, but of all trading communities, universally 
engaged in the traffic. Times have changed. Let us 
judge men by the light of their own day. We, no doubt, 
will need like favor badly enough an hundred years 
hence. 

The meeting, at the close of the discourse, proceeded 
to vote thirty hundred-weight of lead, ten thousand 
French flints, and thirty six barrels of powder. A little 
later they voted "that the several constables should have 
a large staff provided for each of them with the King's 
arms upon them." The authority of the King was as yet 
unquestioned. 

On the 1 2th of December the town approved of the 
Association of the Continental Congress and appointed a 
Committee of Inspection to carry out its provisions. This 
committee of fifty-two men at once met at the tavern of 
Amos Cowles, and while they are busy with the public 
good, and, very likely, with the good of the house, let us 
take a little rest from the contemplation of these warlike 
proceedings and look about us. The inn of Amos Cowles 
stood just south of the church, on or about the site of the 
house of the late Chauncey D. Cowles, Esq. It has long 



since disappeared, as have all but about a half-dozen of 
the houses of that day, and they, for the most part, have 
been reconstructed past recognition. The village street, 
certainly not since broadened with age, ran as now, and 
along it passed the pedestrian, the horseback rider, and 
the unwieldy cart of the farmer. Pleasure carriages were 
unknown. When the minister of that day brought home 
his bride in the first chaise his parishoners had ever seen 
they lined the street to welcome him, and the first man 
who cauofht sisfht of the coming chaise shouted, " The 
cart is coming." Mail coaches were unknown. In 1778 
Joseph Root advertised in The Connecticut Courant as 
follows : 

" This is to notify those that have friends in General Parsons' 
brigade that I have undertook to ride post for the town of Farm- 
ington, the letters to be left at my house and at Landlord Adams', 
Southington; at Landlord Smith's, New Britain; at Landlord 
Hayes', Salmon Brook; at Esq. Owen's, Simsbury; at Joseph Kel- 
logg's. New Hartford, and at Robert Mecune's, at Winchester. 
Those who have letters to send are desired to leave them at either 
of the above places by the first day of next month, at which time 
I shall set out. Joseph Root. 

" N. B. Letters may also be left at Lieut. Heth's, West Hart- 
ford, and at Landlord Butler's in Hartford. 

"Farmington, June 12, 1778." 

The travel between the two capitals of the colony 
then, as now, passed on the other side of the mountain 
through Wethersfield and Wallingford, but the exigencies 
of war required new lines of communication, and this 
quiet street was soon to be familiar with the measured 
tread of armies. Thomas Lewis, writing to Lieut. Amos 
Wadsworth at Roxbury Camp, says : 

"The same night " (that is, July 19, 1775,) "lodged in this 

town a captain with a company of riflemen, who appeared to be, 

many of them, very likely young gentlemen. The officers 

informed me a great number of their soldiers were men possessed 

2 



lO 

with fortunes worth three or four thousand apiece. These are 
from Philadelphia and on their march to join the army. The Cap- 
tain told me he expected one thousand more of the same troops 
would pass the town next week for the like purpose." 

After the evacuation of Boston the line of communi- 
cation from Newport and Hartford to the Highlands 
above New York passed through this village. 

Here in 1781 marched the arm}^ of Rochambeau. 
The diary of one of his aids, accompanied with a map of 
the route, records, under date of June 24th : 

" In the afternoim I went to see a charming spot called 
Wethersfield, four miles from East Hartford. It would be impos- 
sible to find prettier houses and a more beautiful view. I went up 
into the steeple of the church and saw the richest country I had 
yet seen in America. From this spot you can see for fifty miles 
around. 

"June 25. In the morning the army resumed its march to 
reach Farmington. The coiintry is more open than that we had 
passed over since our departure, and the road fine enough. The 
village is considerable, and the position of the camp, which is a 
mile and a half from it, was one of the most fortunate we had as 
yet occui)icd. " 

On the return of the army in 1782 Rochambeau made a 
halt in Farmington on the 29th of October, and the next 
day in Hartford. 

Of the journeys of Washington through this town he 
leaves its but brief mention. In May, 1781, he writes: 

" I begin at this epoch a concise journal of military transac- 
tions, etc. I lament not having attempted it from the commence- 
ment of the war." 

In this journal he writes : 

" May 19th. Breakfasted at Litchfield, dined at Farmington, 
and lodged at Wethersfield." 

Also: 

" May 24th. Set out on my return to New Windsor, dined at 
Farmington, and lodged at Litchfield." 



II 

This is all we gather from his own writing, but we 
know that on the 1 8th of September, 1 780, he bade adieu 
to General Arnold at Peekskill and was in Hartford on 
the 2ist. The commonly traveled road between the 
places lay through Farmington. After his conference 
with Rochambeau, he leaves Hartford on the 23d and 
arrives at Litchfield on the same day. Two days later he 
heard of the flight of Arnold. On the 2d of March, 1781, 
he left New Windsor, and arrived at Hartford on the 4th, 
and, returning on Sunday the 18th,- was back at his head- 
quarters at New Windsor on the 20th. He seems, there- 
fore, to have passed through Farmington six times : on 
the 20th and 23d of September, 1780, the 4th and iSth of 
March, 1781, and the 19th and 24th of May, 1781. 

What house had the honor of entertaining his Excel- 
lency is uncertain. An idle tradition one hears over and 
over again tells us that once, being overtaken by a sud- 
den storm, Washington took refuge in the newly erected 
meeting-house, but if there is any one with any military 
experience before me, I will leave him to determine into 
which the General would most likely turn his stej^s, the 
hospitable inn of Amos Cowles, or the house of God with 
closed doors, standing there side by side. The means of 
entertainment at that day were ample. As he rode down 
the mountain slope from the east and first came in sight 
of the meeting-house spire, the tavern of vSamuel North, 
Jr., greeted him on the left. A little farther on, where the 
Elm Tree Inn now stands, Mr. Phineas Lewis would have 
been happy to entertain the General. He could also have 
been cordially welcomed by Mr. vSeth Lee, where are now 
the brick school buildings of Miss Porter. If he suc- 
ceeded in passing all these attractions, the newly erected 
inn of Mr. Asahel Wadsworth, grandfather of the late 
Winthrop M. Wadsworth, Esq., hung out its sign, and 
just as he turned off from the main street into the wilder- 



12 



ness toward Litchfield there was still the well-known inn 
of Captain vSolomon Cowles to prepare him for the rough 
journey before him. This last tavern was famous in its 
day. The weary teamster on his journey with supplies 
for the army hailed it with delight. One Joseph Joslin, 
Jr., a revolutionary teamster from Killingly, left a racy 
diary which ought to please the modern advocates of pho- 
netic spelling. He says : 

"April 21, 1777. We set out again and went through Harwin- 
ton into Farmington, and it was very bad carting indeed, I 
declare, and we stayed at a very good tavern, old Captain Coles', 
and we fare well, and did lie in a bed, I think." 

The hay mow by the side of his cattle was usually con- 
sidered good enough for a revolutionary teamster. Three 
days later he says : 

" I went to Farmington to old Captain Coles' again." 

But alas ! the hopes of man are deceitful. It was a Fast 
day, and all he could get was a little cold, raw pork. But 
it is time for us to return to our Committee of Inspec- 
tion, whom we left at the house of Amos Cowles. William 
judd was made chairman and John Treadwell clerk, and 
their business was to carry out the requirements of the 
fourteen articles of the A.s.sociation of the Continental 
Congress. This agreement, signed by the representatives 
of the twelve colonies at Philadelphia on the 20th of Octo- 
ber, 1774, was not .so much sustained by law as by the 
merciless power of public opinion. The tran.sgressor was 
looked upon as Achan with his wedge of gold in the 
Lsraelitish camp before Jericho. A single instance will 
illustrate the spirit of the times and help you to under- 
stand what is to follow. Samuel Smith, merchant, of New 
Britain, had been convicted by Isaac Lee, Jr., justice of 
the peace, of .selling metheglin at too high a price, 
namely, at eight shillings the gallon, and hens' eggs at 



13 

the enormous price of one shilling the dozen. He 
brought his humble petition to the General Assembly, in 
which he says : 

" But when your memorialist reflects on the disability he is 
under, a sort of political death or disfranchisement which must 
render him incapable either to provide for or save himself from 
insult, or to serve the public in this time of calamity, which he 
always has and still wishes to do, he cannot but in the most hum- 
ble manner pray this honorable Assembly to take your memorial- 
ist's case into your wise consideration and grant that he may be 
restored to his former freedom." 

The petition was signed by Justice Lee and twenty- 
six of the principal men of New Britain. The Assembly 
promptly granted his petition. Our committee held sev- 
eral meetings, and considered numerous complaints which 
the vSons of Libert}^ had to make concerning the patriot- 
ism of their neighbors and of each other. It required 
cool heads and ripe wisdom to satisfy* this red-hot zeal 
and do justice to all offenders. I will note only a few 
representative cases. Samuel Scott was accused of labor- 
ing on a Continental Fast day. This soleinn day was to 
be kept with all the strictness of the Jewish Sabbath, and 
in its entirety. " Thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor 
thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant, nor thy maid- 
servant, nor thy cattle, nor the stranger that is within thy 
gates." It was not alleged that he had himself performed 
any labor on that sacred day, but there was some suspicion 
that one of his hired men might have done some work 
not strictly necessary. For this and similar cases the com- 
mittee drew up a form of confession, in which the accused 
affirmed his fervid patriotism and regretted any breach of 
the fourteen articles he might possibly have been guilty 
of. Another case made our worthy committee more 
trouble. Captain Solomon Cowles and Martha, his wife, 
were complained of for allowing Seth Bird of Litchfield 



14 

and Daniel Sheldon of Woodbury to drink India tea at 
their tavern. P'rom the time of the destruction of the tea 
in Boston harbor nothing so roused the wrath of the pat- 
riots as any dalliance with this forbidden luxury. Their 
wives, who had patriotically abstained from their darling 
beverage and looked with regretful eyes on their unused 
china, could not endure such intemperance as this. The 
guilty parties printed their humble apology in TJic Con- 
necticut Coiirant. Seth Bird was exceedingly wroth, and 
published in the next paper his version of the affair, this 
tempest in a teapot, as it seems to us, laying all the blame 
on the landlady, and accusing her and the committee of 
making him infamous. It was the old story of the forbid- 
den fruit and the ignoble reply, " The woman gave me 
and I did eat." He says : 

"About the middle of the month of March last past I called 
for breakfast at Captain Solomon Cowles'. The landlady said she 
would get some, and asked what would suit, and added, says she, 
' I suppose you don't drink tea.' I answered that I had not prac- 
tised it, to be sure, since March came in, but as I feel this morn- 
ing it would not wrong my conscience to drink a dish or two, if I 
could come at it, for I had a new cold by riding in the wet the 
night before and had slept very little, etc. The landlady replied 
that if I felt unwell she supposed she might get me soine, and 
accordingly went and prepared it, and I drank thereof." 

The committee do not seem to have taken any notice 
of Mr. Bird's disrespectful paper. Litchfield was a far 
country, and, like the immortal Dogberry, they no doubt 
thanked God they were well rid of one offender. More 
serious still were the complaints against the Tories. 
Some one petitioned that Nehemiah Royce, " a person 
politically excommunicated," be prevented from sending 
his children to the public school. The committee wisely 
declined any such action, and, moreover, voted that the 
evidence against him " is not sufficient to justify the com- 



15 

mittee in advertising said Royce in the gazette." Every 
week there appeared on the first page of The Courant, in 
the blackest type Mr. Watson possessed, a list of enemies 
of their country, and confessions from parties accused 
appeared from every part of the State. Matthias Leam- 
ing, they voted, should be advertised in the public gazette 
" for a contumacious violation of the whole Association of 
the Continental Congress," and then voted to defer the 
execution of their sentence. By the middle of the fol- 
lowing September the committee had had enough of the 
business, and voted " to request a dismission from the 
office, it being too burthensome to be executed by them 
for a longer time." A new committee was appointed, 
who passed a few votes, and then we hear no more of 
them. There were more important matters to occupy the 
public mind. The persecution of ]\Iatthias Learning, how- 
ever, was not yet ended. As late as 1783 his petition to 
the General Assembly sets forth that, being involved in 
debt, he had conveyed his real estate to a brother without 
his knowledge and without receiving one penny in con- 
sideration. Unfortunately for Matthias, his brother joined 
the enemy in New York, and the land, being found 
recorded in his name, was confiscated. 

A very long and minute report by the legislative 
committee is on file, in which they decided adversely. 
Three years later another long memorial met the same 
fate, but in 1787 the Assembly gave him ;^8o in treasury 
notes, payable on the ist of the next February. Before 
that day the treasury was virtually bankrupt. In October, 
1788, Governor Treadwell drew up another memorial, and 
persuaded Rev. Timothy Pitkin, Col. Noadiah Hooker, and 
twelve others of the most prominent men of the village 
to petition the Assembly to assist him in his old age and 
distress. No action was taken. The treasury was power- 
less to help. No doubt the Tories were treated roughly. 



i6 

wSome lost their lands by confiscation. Some were hung-. 
It is very easy to sit by the quiet firesides which the valor 
of patriotic fathers secured us and coolly moralize on their 
severity. War is not a lovely thing, least of all, civil war. 
The sight of neighbors with whom we were wont to hold 
pleasant converse arrayed against us, side by side with 
hired mercenaries and scalping savages, rouses passions 
slumbering deep down in human nature, which war 
always has and always will arouse, moralize as we will, so 
long as warm blood flows in human veins. A single letter 
written by Dr. Timothy Hosmer of this village to Ensign 
Amos Wadsworth July 30, 1775, illustrates the spirit of 
the times, and is, perhaps, quite enough to say about 
Whig and Tory hatred. He says : 

" The first act I shall give you is concerning the grand Con- 
tinental Fast as conducted by that great friend to administration, 
the Rev. John Smalley. The Sitnday before the Fast, after ser- 
vice, he read the proclamation, and then told his people that fast- 
ing and prayer were no doubt a Christian duty, and that they 
ought in times of trouble to set apart a suitable time to celebrate 
a fast, but they were not obliged to keep the day by that procla- 
mation, as they (the Congress) had no power to command, but 
only to recommend, and desired they would speak their minds by 
a vote, whether they would keep the day. The vote was accord- 
ingly called for, and it appeared to be a scant vote, though they 
met on the Fast day and he preached to them. We look i:pon it 
as implicitly denying all authority of Congress. It hath awakened 
his best friends against him. Even Lieut. Porter, Mr. Bull, and 
John Treadwell say they cannot see any excuse for him, and I 
believe the committee will take up the matter and call him to 
answer for his conduct. There hath happened a terrible rumpus 
at Waterbury with the Tories there. Capt. Nicholl's son, Josiah, 
enlisted under Capt. Porter in Gen. Wooster's regiment, went 
down to New York with the regiment, tarried a short time, and 
deserted . . . came home and kept a little under covert, but 
goes down to Saybrook and there enlisted with Capt. Shipman 
. . . . got his bounty and rushed off again. Capt. Shipman 
came up after him . . and went with some people they had got 



17 

to assist them to Lemuel Nicholl's, where they supposed he was. 
Lemuel forbade their coming in, and presented a sword and told 
them it was death to the first that offered to enter, but one young 
man seized the sword by the blade and wrenched it out of his 
hands. They bound him and made a search through the house, 
but could find nothing of Josiah. The Tories all mustered to 
defend him, and finally got Lemuel from them and he and Josiah 
pushed off where they cannot be found. This ran through Thurs- 
day. The Whigs sent over to Southington for help, and the peo- 
ple almost all went from Southington on Friday. They took Capt. 
Nicholls, whom they found on his belly over in his lot, in a bimch 
of alders, carried him before Esq. Hopkins, and had him bound 

over to the County Court at New Haven They had 

near loo Tories collected upon the occasion, and were together till 
ten o'clock Friday night. They dispersed and there was nothing 
done to humble them, but I apprehend the next opportunity I 
have to write I shall be able to inform you that Smalley and they, 
too. will be handled. " 

If the Rev. Dr. Smalley of New Britain, eminent 
divine and esteemed pastor, had not at this time deter- 
mined which cause to espouse, there was no doubt in the 
mind of the pastor of the church in Farmington, the Rev. 
Timothy Pitkin. His pulpit rang with fervid discourses 
on liberty. He visited his parishioners in their camp, and 
wrote them letters of encouragement and sympathy. To 
Amos Wadsworth, in camp at Roxbury, he writes : 

" These wait on you as a token of my friendship. Truly I feel 
for my native, bleeding country, and am embarked with you in 
one common cause. . . . What you may be called to is 
unknown. I wish you may fill up your new department with wis- 
dom, courage, and decorum. My hope is yet in God, the Lord of 
Hosts and God of Armies." 

To the first company of soldiers marching from Simsbury 
he preached a farewell sermon from the words, " Play the 
man for your country, and for the cities of your God ; 
and the Lord do that which seemeth Him good." 

At the opening of the war there stood at the south- 

3 



west corner of Main street and the Meadow lane, as it was 
called, a shop where Amos and Fenn Wadsworth adver- 
tised to sell drugs, groceries, etc., etc. Amos, the elder 
brother, was one of the first soldiers to march to Boston, 
and it is from his extensive correspondence, together with 
the orderly-book of Roger Hooker and the diary of Dea- 
con Samuel Richards, that most of our knowledge of 
Farmington men in the war is derived. The first Farm- 
ington company commenced its march on the 1 8th of May, 
1775, being the 6th company of General Joseph Spencer's 
regiment. The officers were Noadiah Hooker, Captain ; 
Peter Curtiss and Joseph Byington, Lieutenants ; Amos 
Wadsworth, Ensign, and Roger Hooker, Orderly-Ser- 
geant. They were eight days on their march, resting one 
rainy day at Thompson. They were stationed at Rox- 
bury and there remained during the siege. They were 
therefore at a distance from Bunker Hill and took no part 
in the battle of Jtme 17th. Deacon Richards, however, 
gives a description of the battle as he saw it from elevated 
ground at Roxbury. With the exception of this one bat- 
tle, the whole army was kept in inglorious inactivity for 
want of powder, seldom returning the fire from the bat- 
teries in Boston. Deacon Richards says : 

' ' The almost constant fire of the enemy produced one eflfect pro- 
bably not contemplated by them : it hardened our soldiers rapidly to 
stand and bear fire. When their balls had fallen and became still 
the men would strive to be the first to pick them up to carry to a 
sutler to exchange for spirits. At one time they came near pay- 
ing dear for their temerity. A bomb had fallen into a barn, and 
in the daytime it could not be distinguished from a cannon ball in 
its passage. A number were rushing in to seize it when it burst 
and shattered the barn very much, but without injuring any one. 

One night a ball passed through my apartment in 

the barracks, a few feet over me, as I lay in my berth. Such 
things, having become common, we thought little of them." 



19 

The troops before Boston were mostly farmers, each 
at home the absolute lord of his broad acres, impatient of 
military discipline, and a sore trial to the patience of 
Washington. Over and over again Orderly-vSergeant 
Roger Hooker records, "It is with astonishment the Gen- 
eral finds," etc., etc. On the 4th of August it is 

"With indignation and shame the General observes that, not- 
withstanding the repeated orders which have been given to pre- 
vent the firing of guns in and about the camp which is daily prac- 
tised, that, contrary to all orders, straggling soldiers do still pass 
the guards and fire at a distance where there is not the least 
probability of hurting the enemy, and where there is no end 
answered but to waste their ammunition and keep their own camp 
in a continual alarm, to the hurt and detriment of every good sol- 
dier, who is thereby disturbed of his natural rest, and at length 
will never be able to disting^ush between the real and false 
alarm." 

Occasionally the men were allowed to gratify their 
restlessness in certain madcap adventures. On the 1 2th 
of June Amos Wadsworth writes : 

"A week ago last Friday about one hundred of our men went 
to one of the islands to assist some of the Whigs in getting off 
their families and effects. They brought off about 500 sheep, 
some cattle and horses, and took a boat belonging to one of the 
transport ships with three men as they were fishing near the shore. 
They secured the men and drew out the boat in plain sight of a 
man-of-war. The ship twice manned out her boats and set off, 
but put back without doing anything more. Our men got a team 
and cart, loaded the boat into the cart, hoisted her sails, set the 
two commanding officers in the stern of the boat, and the three 
prisoners rowing, and in this manner drove on as far as Cam- 
bridge, where they confined their prisoners in gaol 

Eight of our company were in the expedition. She is now launched 
in a large pond about 100 rods from us, very convenient for us to 
fish and sail in." 

Amos Wadsworth, Roger Hooker, and others of their 
company were in the somewhat famous boat expedition of 
July nth. Amos writes : 



20 

" It was necessary for us to take the night for the business, as 
we had several ships of war to pass. We lay till after sundown, 
and then manned out 45 whale boats and set off for Long Island in 
order to take whatever we could find on the island. About 11 
o'clock arrived at the island, and landed without opposition, and 
drove off 19 cattle, about 100 sheep, i horse, 4 hogs. The island 
lies between the lighthouse and Castle, and, we supposed, was 
guarded by a party of regulars. The island is about one and one- 
half miles long, and one large house on it, which contained con- 
siderable furniture, which we carried off the most of it. We took 
19 prisoners on the island, two of whom were women, one a young 
lady a native of Boston, who, they said, was to have been married 
to the captain of the King's store ship the next week. The most 
of the prisoners, we suppose, w^ere marines and sailors sent on 

shore to cut hay for the use of the troops in Boston 

We towed the cattle near two miles at the stern of the boats to 
another island, where we landed them, and a part of the men 
drove them at low water to the main land. There were 7 ships 
lying so near the shore that we could hear people talk on board 
them, though not distinctly, and see the ships plain. I can give 
no reason why they did not fire on us. After we had returned as 
far as Dorchester with the boats the prisoners said there was 
something of value left in the house. We got to Dorchester 
Wednesday morning about 6 o'clock. Ten boats were manned out 
with fresh hands to go and make farther search and burn the barn 
and hay. They landed in the daytime, and were attacked by a 
number of the King's troops in a boat and an armed schooner, 
which fired grape-shot and obliged them to retreat with the loss 
of one man. However, they fired the house and barn before they 
left the island, but had not time to get much furniture on board, 
nor was there much for them, as we brought off all the beds, 
chairs, tables, a considerable quantity of wool, cupboard furni- 
ture, etc." 

Amos wrote many entertaining- letters which I have 
no time to quote at length. He gave to his brother Fenn, 
who kept the shop in his absence, minute directions for 
preparing those tremendous medical compounds which 
were supposed to suit the hardy constitutions of our ances- 
tors. His orders about clothing would horrify the trim 



militia man of our time. Every man in the army dressed 
as seemed good unto himself. There were no uniforms. 
Deacon Elijah Porter, Farmington's first librarian, is said, 
on the authority of another deacon, to have worn his 
wedding suit to the war. Orderly-Sergeant Roger Hooker 
records on the 14th of June : 

" That no man appear for any duty, except fatigtie, with long 
trousers, or without stockings and shoes." 

After Washington took command the orderly-book 
announces that the officers 

' ' Be distinguished in the following manner. The Com- 
mander-in-Chief with a light blue ribbon worn across his breast 
between his coat and vest. The Major and Brigadier- Generals 
with a pink ribbon in the same manner, and the Aids-de-Camp by 
a green ribbon." 

Colonel Fisher Gay writes, February 26th : 

" Was Officer of the Day. . . . 27th, returned the sash 
. at 9 o'clock and made report to Gen. Ward." 

This sash or ribbon seems to have been the means of 
distinguishing officers from privates. On the 4th of Sep- 
tember Lieut. Wadsworth was on the point of joining 
Arnold's expedition against Quebec, but was dissuaded by 
his friends. Almost the next we hear of him is the 
account of his funeral, celebrated with much military dis- 
play on the 30th of October, the day after his death. The 
procession was headed by an advance guard of twenty 
men with reversed arms, followed by the Sergeants as 
bearers. The coffin was covered with black velvet and 
bore two crossed swords. Then followed the mourners, 
his mother and brother, the regiment under arms, and 
the officers of the other regiments. The musicians 
played the tune, " Funeral Thoughts," and at the end of 
every line the drums beat one stroke. The march was a 



22 

mile and a half long, and during the last half-mile the 
Brookline bell tolled constantly. His monument stands 
to-day in the old cemetery of Brookline. His brother 
Fenn soon entered the army, and was for several years 
one of the Committee of the Pay Table in Hartford. He 
died just after the close of the war, and a monument in 
Saratoga marks his resting-place. 

From this point our sources of information about 
Farmington men in the war are sadly lessened. The 
orderly-book of Roger Hooker closes with his promotion 
to be Second Lieutenant under Ebenezer Sumner, Cap- 
tain of the 5th Company in the 226. Regiment, which 
office he was holding as early as December i ith. On the 
2d of February, 1776, begins the vshort diary of Colonel 
Fisher Gay. He says : 

"Setoff for headquarters to join the army under command 
of General Washington before Boston, and arrived at Roxbury 
the 6th of said month. Stationed at Roxbury with the regiment 
I belonged to, and quartered at Mr. Wyman's with Col. Wolcott 
and Mr. Perry. Was sent for by General Washington to wait on 
his Excellency the 13th of said month, and was ordered by the 
General to go to Connecticut to purchase all the gunpowder I 
could. Went to Providence, and from thence to Gov. Trumbull, 
where I obtained 2 tons of the Governor, and then to New Lon- 
don to Mr. T[homas| Mumford, and obtained of him an order on 
Messrs. Clark & Nightingill, merchants in Providence, and re- 
turned to camp the 19th, and made report to the General to his 
great satisfaction." 

On Sunday, March 17th, he writes: 

"Col. Wolcott on the hill. An alarm in the morning. I 
ordered the regiment to meet before the Colonel's door after 
prayers. I marched them off with Major Chester. Near the 
alarm post found, instead of going to action, the enemy had aban- 
doned Boston. 500 troops immediately ordered to march into 
and take possession of the fortifications in Boston. Col. Larned, 
myself, Majors Sproatand Chester, with a number of other olhcers 



23 

and troops, marched in and took possession, and tarried there till 
the 19th at night, then returned to camp at Roxbury. Never peo- 
ple more glad at the departure of an enemy and to see friends." 

Deacon Samuel Richards also tells of the entry into 
Boston in his " Personal Narrative." He says : 

" I had the gratification of being selected to carry the Ameri- 
can flag at the head of the column which entered from the Rox- 
bury side. When arrived in the town numerous incidents crowded 
upon our view. I can particularize btit few of them. The burst 
of joy shown in the countenances of our friends so long shut up 
and domineered over by an insulting enemy; the meeting and 
mutual salutations of parents and children, and other members of 
families, having been separated by the sudden shutting up of the 
town after the battle of Lexington; the general dilapidation of 
the houses, several churches emptied of all the inside work and 
turned into riding-schools for the cavalry; all the places which 
had been previously used for public resort torn to pieces. As I 
was the bearer of the flag, I attracted some attention and was 
constantly pressed with invitations to ' call in and take a glass of 
wine with me.' " • 

On the day before the evacuation of Boston Governor 
Trumbull closes a letter with the exclamation : 

"Hitherto the Lord hath helped us. Although they came 
against us with a great multitude and are using great artifice, yet 
let our eyes be on the Lord of Hosts and our trust in Him." 

And then adds : 

" P. S. This moment received a letter from headquarters 
requesting me to throw two thousand men .into New York from 
the frontiers of Connecticut to maintain the place itntil the Gen- 
eral can arrive with the army under his command." 

In response thereto the Farmington soldiers marched 
by way of Providence to New London, where they took 
ship, and, after running upon a rock in Hell Gate, finally 
reached New York in safety. Here, on the 22d of August, 
shortly before the Americans were driven from the city, 



24 

died Colonel Fisher Gay. A not very well authenticated 
tradition affirms that he was buried in Trinity Church- 
yard. 

With New York in possession of the enemy, the 
towns on the coast were exposed to raid by the British 
and Tories. This, with the scarcity of provisions i^ New 
Haven, caused the corporation of Yale College to send 
the freshman class to Farmington, the sophomore and 
junior classes to Glastonbury, and the seniors to Wethers- 
field, to meet at these respective places on the 27th of 
May, 1777. Again they advertise that the sophomore 
class is ordered to meet at Farmington October 22, 1777 : 

" Where provision is made for their residence. We could wish 
to have found suitable accommodations for the senior class, and 
have taken great pains to effect it, but hitherto without success." 

Here came their tutor, the Rev. John Lewis, and here in 
the old cemetery you will find a stone recording the birth 
and death in this village of his son, John Livy. 

After the surrender of Burgoyne, General Gates 
ordered the captured artillery sent to Connecticut for 
safety, and a memorial to the General Assembly states 
that Colonel Ichabod Norton, grandfather of the late 
John T. Norton, Esq., was ordered 

" To take the command of a company and proceed to Albany 
for the purpose of guarding the cannon taken from Gen. Bur- 
goyne the last campaign, ordered to be removed to said Farm- 
ington." 

After the expedition was well under way the snow disap- 
peared, and the men were a fortnight dragging the heavy 
pieces through the mud. They were finally stored in the 
orchard of John Mix, where they remained a considerable 
time. 

During the remainder of the Avar the Farmington 
soldiers were located almost exclusively in the Highlands 



25 

above New York. Of the first occupancy of West Point, 
Deacon Richards says : 

" I being- at the time senior officer of the regiment present, of 
course led on the regiment, crossing the river on the ice. . 
Coming on to the small plain surrounded by the mountains, we 
found it covered with a growth of yellow pines ten or fifteen feet 
high; no house or improvement on it; the snow waist high. We 
fell to lopping down the tops of the shrub pines and treading 
down the snow, spread our blankets, and lodged in that condition 
the first and second nights. " 

Concerning this same affair Deacon Elijah Porter says in 
his journal: 

"When Gen. Putnam was ready to go over on the ice he 
called me to come to him. He then loaded me with tools for 
building huts, and took a heavy load himself, and bade me follow 
him. When we got about half a mile on the ice, he went on some 
shelly ice, began to slip about, and down he went with his load of 
tools and made the ice crack so that I thought he would go down, 
but the ice held him up, and I sprang round and picked up his 
tools and loaded him up again. We went on and arrived safe on 
the point." 

Deacon Porter soon returned home and his journal 
closes, but Deacon Richards remained at West Point and 
was an eye-witness of the execution of Andre. To 
Timothy Hosmer, formerly the village doctor of Farm- 
ington, and now army surgeon, was assigned the duty of 
laying his finger on Andre's pulse and reporting him 
dead. 

Deacon Richards was at West Point during the build- 
ing of the fortifications the subsequent spring under the 
direction of Kosciusko. He says : 

" I was quartered a considerable time with him in the same 
log hut, and soon discovered in him an elevation of mind which 
gave fair promise of those high achievements to which he attained. 
His manners were soft and conciliating and at the same time ele- 



26 

rated. I used to take much pleasure in accompanying him about 
with his theodoHte, measuring the heights of the surrounding 
mountains. He was very ready in mathematics. Our family now 
consisted of Brigadier-General Parsons, Doctor, afterwards Presi- 

ent Dwight, Kosciusko, and myself, with the domestics 

When the weather had become mild and pleasant in April, I went 
one day with Dr. Dwight down to view the ruins of Fort Mont- 
gomery, distant about eight or ten miles. There was a pond just 
north of the fort, where we found the British had thrown in the 
bodies of their own and our men who fell in the assault of the 
fort." 

He closes a very gruesome account of the spectacle with 
the exclamation : 

' ' Had the fort held out a little longer, I very probably might 
have lain among them." 

I shall close this rambling paper with a notice of a 
proposed invasion of this quiet village, a bill for which 
actually passed the Lower House of the General Assembly 
near the close of the war in 1781 : 

" Resolved by this Asseinbly that considering the peculiar 
difficulty that many of the members of this Assembly meet with 
in procuring subsistence for themselves and forage for their 
horses, it is expedient this Assembly be adjourned to the town of 
Farmington to transact and complete the business of the pi-esent 
session, as soon as proper accommodations can be made and that 
the selectmen of said town be desired to make the necessary pre- 
paration for the reception of the Assembly as soon as possible. 
" Passed in the Lower House, 

"Test, John Treadwell, Clerk, P. T." 

The reply to this request by the Selectmen of Farm- 
ington was as follows : 

'• To the Honorable Lower House of Assembly now sitting in 
Hartford. Being desired by your Honors to make inquiry whether 
the General Assembly may be accommodated in their present ses- 
sions in this town, we have to observe that from the knowledge 
we have of the circumstances of the inhabitants, we are of the 



27 

opinion that should the Honorable Assembly signify their deter- 
mination to adjourn to this place, the members might be conveni- 
ently, though perhaps not elegantly subsisted, and their horses 
well provided. The greatest difficulty will be to provide a house 
in which it would be convenient to transact business. The Meet- 
ing House, though elegant and well finished, would be inconveni- 
ent for want of a fire at this inclement season. The dwelling 
house of Mr. Asahel Wadsworth, situate in the center of the town, 
may be obtained for the purpose, and is as convenient as any in 
the town. It is 42 feet in length and about 22 in breadth. The 
rooms on the lower floor finished, and one of them may well 
accommodate the Honorable Upper House. There are two stacks 
of chimnies, one at each end. The chambers are unfurnished, the 
floor laid but not divided into several apartments. One fire place 
is finished, and the room, if proper seats were made, which might 
soon be done, would be large enough for the Lower House. The 
house is covered with jointed boards and clapboards upon them, 
but neither ceiled nor plastered. This is an exact description of 
Mr. Wadsworth's house, and if the Honorable Assembly shall 
judge it will answer the ptirpose, upon suitable notice might be 
accommodated and other preparation made in a short time. 

' ' We are, with sentiments of the highest esteem and regard, 
■ " Your Honors' most obedient and most humble servants. 

"Farmington, February 26, 1781. 

James Judd, ^ Selectmen 
Isaac Bidwell, ( of Farmington. 

A letter from Elijah Hubbard offering- the Assembly 
accommodations at jNIiddletown equally magnificent was 
also sent. 

Time fails to speak of the after-life of these worthy 
men, of William Judd, famous in the political history of 
the State ; of John Treadwell, last of the Puritan Gover- 
nors of Connecticut ; of Samuel Richards, first post- 
master of Farmington ; of Roger Hooker, sittino- of a 
summer evening under his noble elm tree and delighting- 
the assembled youth of the village with tales of a seafar- 
ing youth, of shipwreck, and of his long service in the 



28 

Continental army ; of Timothy Hosmer, village doctor, 
army surgeon, judge of Ontario county. New York, and 
pioneer settler of that western wilderness ; of Noadiah 
Hooker, honored with many public trusts, and finally, as 
a white-haired old man, standing on the hillside above 
Whitehall and dropping a • not unmanly tear over the 
graves of a hundred of his soldiers buried by him during 
the terrible days of the pestilence at Skenesborough ; of 
John Mix, for twenty-six years the representative of this 
town to the General Assembly of the State, and of Tim- 
othy Pitkin, welcoming his children home from their vic- 
torious struggle, their beloved pastor and faithful friend. 
There were other, many other, worthy men of whom we 
would know more, who deserved well of their country. 
If this paper shall prompt any one to preserve the scanty 
memorials of them which still exist, my labor this even- 
ing will not have been in vain. 



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